‘You've always been a warrior’ - Mahela Jayawardene’s special message for Virat Kohli after latter breaks his long-standing record

Virat Kohli has been shattering records for fun over the years in his remarkable international career, however, one record that will be spoken of for a long time is his phenomenal run-making in T20 World Cups.

The 33-year-old has been lighting up stages with stupendous knocks continuously in the tournament and he managed to surpass Mahela Jayawardene’s long-standing record recently during the fixture against Bangladesh. 

Jayawardene played for Sri Lanka from the maiden edition of the T20 World Cup in 2007 to the title winning campaign in 2014 and accumulated 1016 runs in 31 innings at an average of 39.07. Meanwhile, Kohli took just 23 innings to go past Jayawardene’s tally at an outstanding average of more than 85. The record can get only better from here with 13 half-centuries to his name already in the tournament. 

Jayawardene who is currently with the Sri Lanka squad in Australia as a consultant coach addressed Kohli’s feat in a video and heaped praise on the star batter for going past his record.  

Form is temporary but class is permanent: Mahela Jayawardene 

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Jayawardene mentioned that breaking records is a must in the game and was delighted with Kohli achieving the feat. He went on to term Kohli as a ‘warrior’ for his massive accomplishments so far and said his class is permanent despite the form taking a hit in the last two years.

Kohli has had a major turnaround in his form from the start of the Asia Cup 2022 and since then, the graph has only gone upwards. 

"Records are meant to be broken. Someone was always going to break my record, and it's you, Virat. Brilliant mate, congratulations. You've always been a warrior. Form is temporary but class is permanent. Well done, buddy," Jayawardene said in a video shared by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday. 

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